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Dessert

Whole Wheat Pudding

A steamed pudding made with whole wheat flour, milk, molasses, and raisins or berries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Whole Wheat Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. Add the milk, molasses, and raisins or berries, and stir until combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a steaming dish and steam for 2.5 hours.

  2. Serve with whipped cream or a plain pudding sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whole wheat flour
Provides the main structure and a hearty, nutty texture for the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter becomes spoonable.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color, and moisture, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Raisins or berries
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for the full 2.5 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it. Lifting the lid or letting the water boil low can cause uneven, dense results.

Swap the dates

The recipe marks dates as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, flour, milk, molasses, raisin):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, milk, molasses, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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